In case you've forgotten, this is the weird idol simulation spin-off of the Neptunia series. From what I've heard the game isn't actually very good, kind of like a mediocre Idolmaster clone with fewer characters and hardly any songs. Still, it's kind of notable since as far as I know it's the first time one of these idol simulation games has ever been localized. It's just unfortunate that the west's first exposure to this genre isn't a very good one. I guess they're banking on the popularity of the Neptunia series (within a certain subgroup of people...). That and the fact that Namco Bandai is never going to localize Idolmaster...

Yeah...no idea how that got through of all things. :-\ Neptunia's a guilty pleasure for me but I really can't say I have any interest in an idol simulator of it. I understand the Vita is a little title starved right now but...really?

Yeah, this is a strange choice. I think it might have to do with IF (and Compile Heart being a division of IF) getting a North America branch soon, I think NISA might be worried about its future title prospects. They probably had the rights secured for this before IF made its intentions known. They lost Atelier and now they might lose their IF/CH games like Neptunia and Mugen.

Bamco did technically localize an Idolmaster spinoff series thing, but eh

OK, yes they did but those are just rhythm games. Plenty of rhythm games have been localized in the past (even more obscure ones) so I don't think that's particularly significant. I'm still pretty doubtful they would ever bring the core games over.

The Idolmaster games are pretty interesting. They're part management simulation, part rhythm game, and part visual novel. Which may sound like a weird combination but it works. The management aspects are sort of the core of the game, as you have to plan activities every week and try balance making money and increasing your fan base. Then there are also training minigames to up the stats of your performers and promotional activities that have a VN-esque sequences in them. It's actually quite challenging, too. Getting the top ranked song takes some serious planning and skill.

The most in-depth minigame is, not surprisingly, for actual performances. And it's pretty cool since there's a strategic aspect to it you don't usually see in rhythm games. Ultimately you're just tapping buttons to a fixed beat, but you choose which buttons to press rather than follow cues. There's a score multiplier associated with each type and that multiplier will decrease if you just spam the same type all the time. At first you might think you should just spread it out evenly then, but you also have to consider how the performer's base stats affect these multipliers and eventually you start buying charms that can give special effects to a certain button type, etc. Then on top of all of that once you've built up your meter enough you can do what's essentially a super move, and you choose one of the performers to be the center for it. You can potentially get huge points for this but it's affected by both the current multipliers when you start the super and the performer's base states. So for example Chihaya is really good at singing so if you're going to use her it would be best to purposely build up the singing multiplier ahead of time for the maximum effect.

That might have been kind of rambling but what I'm trying to say is that even the rhythm game part has some depth to it...

Neptunia PP basically rips off the Idolmaster formula except:1) From what I've heard their performance minigame is pretty bad, and it's hard to even tell what kind of effect your actions will have.2) There are only 4 peformers. OK, it could be worse but...3) There are only 5 songs. Yes, 5 songs. In the whole game. No secret unlocks or anything. It's a music game (sort of...) with only 5 songs...4) It's got Neptunia-style humor in it, so if you like that sort of thing there's that...

3) There are only 5 songs. Yes, 5 songs. In the whole game. No secret unlocks or anything. It's a music game (sort of...) with only 5 songs...

I had to do a double-take on that. Only 5? Wow... I just finished Shiny Festa (which was pretty much just another cash-in for iM@S) and it still had 21 songs (though only one or two were brand new, I guess).